Scoopy’s, Week of July 11, 2013

What’s their beef with Pino? After the recent loss of Joe’s Dairy on Sullivan St., we soon heard reports that Pino Prime Meats right across the street also faced a threat. We stopped in at the renowned butcher the other week, and Pino Cinquemani (which translates to “five hands”), above, who has owned the store since 1980, filled us in. As he spoke, he was dressing a chicken with spinach, provolone and prosciutto for a client, Nanette, in Bridgehampton. Basically, it seems the co-op building he’s in, 149-151 Sullivan St., has a “beef” with Pino. Apparently, they don’t like the sawdust he put on the floor, protesting it was getting tracked around on the sidewalk in front and also inside the apartment building on its stairway. “We put sawdust on the floor,” Pino said. “The fat man is come to pick up the fat. I don’t do anything wrong. … It’s not really the landlord,” he added. “It’s the co-op. We don’t know what they want. My customers, they all my friends, they sign a petition. … It must be like one or two guys, they don’t like me — or somebody wants my place.” He has a court date on July 16. But he still has about five years left on his lease, and his lawyer told Pino the co-op doesn’t have a good case. Several weeks ago, though, he stopped spreading sawdust on the floor. “When there’s rain, people take it out [on their shoes],” Pino conceded. “My lawyer said, ‘Don’t put it no more.’ ” Jeremiah Moss of Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York has posted the petition, petitions.moveon.org/sign/save-pinos-prime-meats, currently with more than 1,530 signatures.

Cuomo’s signature moment: After all the sturm and drang over the state Legislature’s stealthy passage of numerous amendments to the Hudson River Park Act without a public process, the question remains — is Governor Cuomo going to sign the legislation into effect, and if so, when? Richard Gottfried, who sponsored the bill in the Assembly along with Deborah Glick, explained, “Under the state constitution, he has 10 days from the time a bill is physically delivered to him by the house in which it originated — in this case, the Assembly. The bill has not been delivered to him yet. The ordinary practice in the closing days of a legislative session, when commonly hundreds of bills are passed, is we don’t just deliver them all to the governor in a big pile. It would be very difficult for him to deal with them in 10 days. So, over the summer, he notifies the Legislature when he is ready for a batch of bills, and we send them. Typically, he will tell us which bills he would like us to send him. Usually almost all the bills are transmitted by the end of the summer. Occasionally a bill or two is still hanging out as we get into December. But ultimately they are all delivered. I would have no idea when he will ask for the Hudson River Park bill to be delivered.” Obviously, the park’s air rights aren’t transferring anywhere unless the governor signs the bill.

We’re feeling the heat: We’re pleased to report that The King, i.e. LeBron James, is now following The Villager on Twitter. He’s following something like 140,000 people, groups, etc., but the way he effortlessly dishes passes and dribbles, he can probably handle that volume easily with just one hand on his smartphone. As for why the reigning league M.V.P. and N.B.A. champ is following us, maybe it was Tequila Minsky’s recent story and photo about a Soho outlet’s early-morning sale of James’s new kicks and all the “heat” that the sneakers were generating. So, just as a test, we’re going to run another of Minsky’s photos, above right, from that sneakerpalooza, and LeBron, if you see this on Twitter, please sling us a behind-the-back, no-look tweet.

The ‘plot’ thickens…sort of: After all the recent controversy in Dias y Flores, things went surprisingly smoothly in the E. 13th St. garden on July 4. There was a party with a mix of about 40 people, including current garden members, plus recently terminated members Jeff Wright and Debra Jenks. There was music and a lot of barbecuing, but no alcohol. Those who preferred to imbibe instead went over to El Sol Brillante on E. 12th St. However, Wright — with the help of a few others — did replant his plants in his former plot, and told us that he envisions it becoming a “community plot.” The garden’s board, last month, after booting out Wright, had dug up his plants and put them in pots, so he could remove them. On July 4, Jenks was also distributing blue and white T-shirts that she and Wright had made, emblazoned with their new “coat of arms” for the garden, two crossed skeleton keys. Jenks had painted this symbol — without approval of the garden’s board — on the side of Dias y Flores’s controversial uncompleted shed during the Memorial Day party. The symbol was later painted over, but then Wright repainted it — with very expensive magic markers, he noted. Last Thursday, Wright told us that, no doubt, the reason the garden’s board has refrained from covering over the “coat of arms” again is because he has warned it would violate the Visual Artists Rights Act. But board member Everett Hill later just shrugged and told us that the shed is only coated with primer now, and that when it gets painted, the keys will be covered again. And Wright’s plants will probably just be dug up and potted again, for him to remove, again. Although the Dias y Flores memberships of Wright and Jenks have been revoked, they both noted that the garden is a New York City public space, and that when it’s open they can come in as they please. In addition, Charles Molloy, who has been a Dias y Flores member since 1982, told us that the moratorium on new members for the garden has been extended by GreenThumb to one year. Previously, we were told it would be through the fall. Also, both Wright and Jenks declined to respond to a question about who reportedly superglued the lock of the garden’s controversial back-door entrance, which they both had complained about previously.

The show will go on! Congratulations to Biz Kids, which has found a new home on the fifth floor of the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Education Center, at Suffolk and Rivington Sts. The popular program for young performers was homeless after being set adrift from Pier 40, at West Houston St., by Hurricane Sandy.

Is dot so? New York City officials announced last Tues., July 2, that the .nyc ending for Web addresses will be available later this year. The Daily News reported that Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced that ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has approved the city’s request to create the .nyc domain. Only city residents and New York-based businesses will be eligible to buy .nyc addresses. However, as The Villager has previously reported in several articles in recent years, East Village ’Net pioneer Paul Garrin claims rightful ownership of .nyc. His startup, name.space, founded in 1996, previously coined and continues to operate about 500 so-called top-level domain names, including .nyc, as well as .art, .sex, .cafe, .cam, .free, .gay, .hotel, .jobs, .news, .politics, .shop, .sucks and .weather, just to name a few. In October 2012, The Villager first reported that Garrin was suing ICANN under federal antitrust laws and trademark infringement for daring to sell off numerous “T.L.D.’s” that his company owns, including .nyc. Garrin’s domain names, however, aren’t usable in the “main root” of the computer — which is the system we all use — because ICANN won’t recognize them, but do work in an alternate root that is easy to set up one’s computer. The city plans to contract with Neustar, a company outside New York — that Garrin described as, “basically, the spook intelligence complex” — to sell .nyc addresses and operate .nyc, generally, with Neustar set to pay the city possibly $3 million. However, Garrin told us this week that he’s still just waiting for his lawsuit against ICANN to play out. “I’m not suing the city or Neustar directly,” he said. “We’re still suing ICANN. They’re going to have to give them up,” he said of his T.L.D.’s that ICANN is trying to sell off, “or the damages are going to be tremendous — hundreds of millions of dollars.” Name.space is being represented by top lawfirm Morrison and Foerster, which previously represented Apple in an iPhone interface suit against Samsung, and won. But Garrin and his partners need funds to keep the case going. People can help the cause, Garrin said, by registering a domain name for $30 at the namespace.us Web site, though there’s also a $5 minimum payment option. Another plus about registering with name.space — they won’t sell your e-mails and info to the feds, like Google, Facebook and Twitter. “We’re not in the spy game,” Garrin declared. “We’re into preserving people’s constitutional rights. … I think Snowden’s a hero and a patriot,” he added. Under a best-case scenario, everyone would buy a name.space domain name and switch to the alternate root. “That would be awesome!” Garrin said. “You would totally deflate the power.”

Corrections: An article in last week’s Villager, “Durst says NID took a hit, but Friends are fighting on,” stated that, under the changes recently approved by the state Legislature for the Hudson River Park Act, proceeds from air-rights sales from the park must exclusively be funneled into the park’s capital construction and repair costs. Scott Lawin, vice chairperson of the Friends of Hudson River Park, had told The Villager this is the way it will work. However, the legislation’s language only states that revenue from transfers of air rights specifically from Pier 40 must go back into that pier’s infrastructure repairs, “after which any excess revenues may be used by the Trust for other uses permitted by this act.” And there are no conditions put on how revenue from air-rights sales from any of the park’s other commercial piers must be spent. … Due to a layout error, the Pride March photos in page 14 of last week’s Villager were credited to Tequila Minsky. They were shot by Milo Hess. … The headline in last week’s talking point in The Villager, “Who has the guts to back retail rent control bill?” about the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, inaccurately represented the bill, which does not mention commercial rent control. Instead, the S.B.J.S.A. refers to mediation and arbitration for merchants’ lease renewals.

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One Response to Scoopy’s, Week of July 11, 2013

I hope that Gov Coumo does not sign the pork laden Hudson River Park Bill unless it was striped of Dick Gottfried's embarrassing amendment that now essentially keeps the heliport exactly where it is-IN HUDSON RIVER PARK.
As for the air transfer rights…Trust Board members Joe Rose and Mike Novogratz- who will primarily benefit from this act- will make sure this goes to signature. you can bet on that.